1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a power module capable of reducing power consumption, even with a light load applied thereto, and a distributed power supply apparatus having the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, electronic devices meeting user demands are variously implemented. The electronic devices may adopt a power supply apparatus supplying driving power so as to implement corresponding functions.
The power supply apparatus may generally adopt a switching mode power supply scheme due to advantages such as power conversion efficiency, miniaturization, or the like.
An example of the power supply apparatus may include a distributed power supply apparatus having a plurality of power modules to supply high-capacity power to electronic devices requiring high-capacity power, such as a server or the like.
FIG. 1 is a schematic configuration diagram of a general distributed power supply apparatus.
Referring to FIG. 1, a general distributed power supply apparatus 10 may include first to N-th power modules 11, 12, . . . , 1N, connected with one another in parallel (where N is a natural number of 1 or more). Among those, the first power module 11 may include an input filter 11a, a power factor correction stage 11b, a DC/DC conversion stage 11c, and a control unit 11d. 
In the case that the distributed power supply apparatus 10 is out of order, only the broken power module may be replaced. In this case, since maintenance, repairs, and upgrades may be easily performed, hot swap technology of removing only the broken power module and inserting a new power module without cutting the entire power supply may be used.
Meanwhile, the above-mentioned distributed power supply apparatus 10 combines outputs of the first to N-th power modules 11, 12, . . . , 1N into one output and transfers the output to a load. As described in Patent Document 1, there is a problem in that the power module is continuously operated, even with a light load applied thereto, and as a result, power consumption is increased.